Guess Who Is Walking With You...

Guess who is walking with you all the time ever since you were born ? Without you realizing it, you often swamped with so many thoughts which you yourself have no idea why are you asking. When you are alone, you cry your heart out. You blame yourself for your loneliness. You crave for someone to comfort you. But when the person doesn't meet your expectations, you get upset again.
There is no need for all this, you just have to realise the truth where no one is alone in this world. There is someone guiding you throughout your life. The day you first opened your eyes till you permanently close it, God is always with you. He takes every single step with you, guiding you along the way. He gives the challenges to you. He offers the solution at the same time. Believe that He is with you always. Then, He will be. Fear not to take the steps forward.
Problems are given by your Maker to mould you into a better person, who can take on challenges no matter what. Accept it truly, surrender yourself into thoughts you are being followed and guided only by Him. Those who constantly look for Him will find peace in his/her heart as nothing is soothing and calming to know that the Creator himself is with you, all the time.

Patience is virtue

There are times you feel upset, stressed and depressed when things doesn't go the way you want or wish. You feel like screaming and asking people why it should happen this way and not that way. Seriously, it is not about us wanting it to happen our way. It's God's wish. We must believe there is a Supreme Power who controls everything. We can only plan but He decides the way he wants to be. So, why waste our time and energy to fight ? Rather pray that the God gives us strength to live this life in meaningful and appreciative way. Pray that He guides and walks with us in every step we take forward. Pray that He be with us every single moment.
There is nothing we  need other than His Blessings. We don't know what He has for us till the time comes.  To know yourself , is to establish a  connection with the God. To feel His presence in our life, we need to allocate some time and think about Him daily. To be devoted to him every  single moment , you need to  love Him unconditionally.  Your love to Him must be pure . You need to portray unselfishness and gratitude. And He will love you in return. There is no love greater than God's love. Thinking of mortal people  who are selfish , self centered and arrogant is simply waste of time. Rather surrender yourself to God. Plead, so He will show you the right path. Each time you are being tested, think of Him. As He is the creator of everything in this world, He knows what us best for you. If you think of your problem, first think why the God has given you the problem. Why it should happen to you. What the God wants you to learn ? Ask for His guidance. With all the endless love you give to Him, you will be shown ways to find solution for your problems. All you need is trust in Him. Never give up on Him. Keep the faith in Him no matter what obstacles you face in life. As He is the ultimate Power. He is Everything.

Thinking About Others

There are times we are awaken from our busy daily schedule by small things that you would normally ignore. Sometimes we are just too busy living our life , executing our daily tasks one by one without a pause. It might not occur to us that we are not thinking deep enough. Are we really maximizing and living our life ? Have we thought what we should do and how we should live our life ? I think we should take 5 minutes everyday to think back what values have we given to ourselves, to our family and community. Life is not just to live, life is to be lived to the fullest. We should feel blessed everyday to be where we are. We should remind ourselves, everyday, that somewhere out there are people who are living life with lesser fortune than us. There are people out there who have more problems than we are. There are people out there who are at the verge of death and even with incurable sickness. Don't take anything for granted. Try to be less selfish and think of those unfortunates. Try to do one good thing everyday. Try to make someone smile. Try to donate $1 to a beggar. Try to spend 5 minutes of your time playing with your 5 year old child. Try to sponsor 1 kid's uniform attire for the next school's term. Sometimes, we should believe that our lives will only be enriched when you make someone else's day. So, rather than focusing just ourselves, try to think of others too. 

An Unforgettable Experience - UK 2010

As I marked 13th till 22nd of June, 2010 as a wonderful and unforgettable vacation, I think its worth to pen down the experiences even though it has been more than 3 years. It took months of preparations. We went through bouts of excitements, worries and etc.  Finally, we made it to UK, a country which we never had plans of visiting. It was a dream come true. I would like to dedicate this post to the two very important stakeholders who made this trip successful - my dearest brother (who got the opportunity to study in Sunderland) and sister (who was willing to spend her money to travel with us). Without them, I would not be writing here.
The preparations started months earlier,just to talk about it brought smiles and excitements in our hearts. To get the confirmed dates was a challenge too. Everyone had their own opinions of best travel period and of course it had to fit our busy schedules too. As time ticked by and each day passed we saw the hike on airline ticket price. When finally the dates are confirmed, we went on to buy the Air Asia X flight. I got it for a cheaper price since I booked it 6 months ahead. 
Then the excitements starts with bunch of exchanged emails back and forth trying to figure the best places to visit, hotels to be booked and itinerary. We did quite pretty in planning I guess because the real trip actually did end following the schedule which we had planned. Then came the Eyjafjalljokull scare. The mountain in Iceland which we never heard of suddenly started to spew its ash a month before our flight to Stansted. We didn't know how long it would last which might hamper our trip. 
But, finally, the day we much anticipated arrived. It was the day we boarded the flight to Stansted. The 13 hours of flights didn't seem to trouble us much with most of the time we spent by sleeping. We landed at Stansted near to midnight, and took 1 hour to clear the immigration. We were greeted by our brother who looked eager-than-ever :). Since it was already past midnight, we stayed overnight at nearby Hilton London Stansted Airport hotel.

@Stansted

The next day, we boarded the bus to Central London and we took the tube to Rayners Lane (our uncle's house where we were to stay in London). Our plan was to go on city tour (Golden London tour) on the next day. 
So, our first stop on London hop on-and-off tour bus was Madame Tussod. We had fun looking at various wax of famous celebrities and public figures. I wanted to snap picture with Shah Rukh Khan's wax but could not find it there, so settled with Salman Khan instead :). My sister was overwhelmed with her Twilight vampire hero - Edward Cullen's wax. Then, we hopped on to go to London Eye. It was kind of boring ride on the merry-go-around but worth visiting as we were able to see buildings surrounding the area. It was then time to go to our last destination for city tour which was London dungeon. We went thru plenty of screams, goosebumps and heart stopping incidents ;). 

London City

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben

London Eye

The next day starts with travelling to London city center to board a bus to out of London city. Our First destination was one of the Queens resindences - Windsor Castle at Berkshire. It was a beautiful castle with nice landscapes. It was such a nice feelings to walk thru the chambers. There were lots of display of items used by the royals too. It was great to know we actually walked in the castle once lived by Queen Elizabeth.

Windsor Castle

 

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle

Next, we headed to Bath where we visited the famous Roman Bath. The buildings were ancient, even though there were ruins but it was preserved well. It was said that the natural hot water still pours through. Our last destination for the day was another English heritage, Stonehenge located near Salisbury. It was very sunny day and breezy. A glance at the great stones reminded us to think of how those primitives people managed to construct the structure with just the help of primitive tools. It was great experience to end the day!

Building at Bath

Roman's Bath

 
Roman's Bath

Stonehenge

 

Flower at Stonehenge

 

The next day, we went on city visit again, this time we visited St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Natural History Museum and cruise on river Thames. The St. James park was beautiful. There were lots of squirrels around, clearly not afraid of humans as they were fed food. We took a walk around the park and weather was very pleasant. One of the noticeable thing was the plaque bearing Princess Diana's name on the ground - marking The Memorial Walk. The Buckingham palace was just next to the park. Although we didn't manage to see the guards changing ceremony, but it was alright. We took plenty of snaps before heading to Hyde Park. There were lots of beautiful rose bushes. We could not take our eyes off it, it was such a magnificent sight! Then, we went on river cruise on the famous River Thames (this was with Thames River Services - Greenwich via Barrier). It was a relaxing cruise. We ended the day by visiting The Natural Science Museum was nice too. There were many preserved specimens of all kinds, replicas of dinosaurs, it was one of the place worth visiting and should not be missed. 

St James Park

St James Park

Hyde Park

Hyde Park

Hyde Park

 

Buckingham Palace

 

Princess Di's Memorial Walk

 

Cruise on Thames

 

Tower Bridge

 

Millennium Dome

 

Something seen during the cruise  not sure what it was .... 

We boarded train from London to Staffordshire on the next day and stopped at Stoke-on-Trent. Our next stop was Alton Towers. The weather was gloomy and it was drizzling too. And we were shivering in cold. But that didn't stop us from taking the attraction of year - The Thirteenth and of course, the unforgettable - Rita :-) It was cool. I guess it was more to the coldness that sort of demotivated us from taking other scary rides especially the Oblivion. 

 

Alton Towers

 

Alton Towers

We spent the night at North Stafford Hotel and traveled to Manchester the next day. We stayed at Britannia Airport Hotel. We took some time to do shopping for people back home especially the much-loved chocolates. So yummy! Then, it was time to bring ourselves back to reality - we headed back to London and finally, landed in our country on 22nd of June. It was well deserved break for me. 

Turning Negative To Positive

Life is full of ups and downs. There are times we are surrounded with happiness then the next minute,sadness befalls us. Why sadness ? This is due to some incidents or happenings or arguments with people around us. There are lots of heart breaks, frustrations and grieve. We often think why can't people or others understands us. And why not people follow our way rather than theirs. We often wonder why does arguments happens at at times we least expect? The moment we thought everything is going on smoothly that's the time we often stuck with problems. If we think carefully, problems cannot be perceived as problems. Problem is a challenge. Challenges will make us a strong person. It is important to change everything negative to positive. It is a challenge by itself to transform negative to positive feelings. But when we successfully accomplish this transformation, our burdens becomes lighter. To be able to see things differently is a skill and self discipline. As a normal human being, we are often swayed or influenced into negative thinkings all the time. But we have train our minds not to be fooled or tricked by this. We have to be firm and always remind ourselves to remain positive , take charge of our brains and change every single negative things into positive. Positivity breeds good energy which in turn improves overall well being!

Learn your purpose and values

There was something on the radio today which caught my attention and sort of reminds me to put my life back on track. It is about the man without arms and limbs - Nick Vujicic. He said there are some things happens in life but you can't explain it and you can't understand why. He said rather than questioning why it happens, you should appreciate what we have right now and not asking why we don't have it right now. Make sense ? He simply said learn why you are here. What is your purpose of you being born, what are your values and how do you do serve ? In this case, you will be able to live your life in much appreciative way. There is no point of getting angry at yourself it others when things does not work the way you want. There is no point worrying about things which are out of your control and boundaries. Instead, think of people around you whom you often take for granted. Learn to appreciate what you have rather than yearning for what you don't have. Things which you don't have will slowly come to you when you make others happy.

Truth

There are plain truths which people often don't know or rather refuse to accept. Just don't understand why. They keep blaming others for their misfortunes. They are trying to escape from reality. What is the point of blaming others when you are at fault ? You don't even understand the whole logic how it works. Are you trying to simple way out by scolding others, causing grieve and hurt to them ? Do you understand the sore you create in their hearts? Do you know how painful it is to be blamed for mistakes not theirs ? Where is your common sense ? Why are you shutting yourself from facts and truths ? If you open your mind you will be ready mentally to attune to moments of truth which you need to digest and swallow. It is hard to accept. By understanding this you will be more peaceful. Everyone is born into world with their own karmas. No one can escape from this circle. There is something called Supreme Power who controls everything. Your job is to accept this. Your journey is this world is planned. All you need to do is accept it and do all your best. Don't blame people for your mistakes. For things happens there are always reasons behind it. It is powerful experience you gain and adds up your life lessons. Never say negative and wish God will do it for you. That is stupidity.

Simple Things in Life

There are many simple things in life which are often overlooked. For a simple reason we just do not have time to even to think about it. How many times have we paused and give a thought of what we have just said? How many times have we stopped and realize we are going too fast in life and we forgot to think how grateful are we? We are just too busy going through our routine life every day. We are executing our life activities one by one as our mind has been programmed. We often forget to halt our life for a moment to appreciate simple things in our life. For getting up in morning, feeling the morning sun or even breathing the air. Everything single thing that we take for granted might not be the same for other people out there. To be happy is to be appreciative and grateful. To feel contented is to feel our life is blessed not with materialistic items but with priceless feeling of never ending happiness.

The Day We Build Our Expectations

The day we started to build our expectations, is the day where we live in uncertainties. As the world is full of uncertainties, possibilities and risks, we will not be sure if we will get what we expect. We raise up each day with plans. Plans which we always think will have to be right and smooth flowing as it should. But when things does not go right, that is when we feel upset. Set the expectations right they say. But did they tell us that not all things should be right?  Did they tell us that it is okay to see our expectations are not met?Life is not made to be perfect. Same as expectations are not made to be successfully achieved all the time. We have to train ourselves not to get carried away when this happens. We have to learn to accept things as it is. We have to learn to embrace any kind of result we get in life. Life without expectations is life without goal and purpose. Nevertheless, adapting to one's life without questioning ourselves "why it should be this way?"